U.S. Labor Department data released this week along with the Commerce Department’s report of declining GDP in the first quarter of 2022, show that the real incomes of U.S. employees are falling faster than the −2.7% at which real weekly wages have been reported to have declined over the past year to March 2022.
First of all, the inflation-adjusted total compensation costs of employers for civilian workers in the United States economy dropped by a much larger −3.7%, consisting of a −4.2% drop in real benefit values, and a −3.6% decline in the real cost to employers of wages and salaries. This is over the same year to March 2022, and was reported April 29 in the Labor Department’s Employment Cost Index.
